Jim Carrey is best known for his comedy skills, as demonstrated in his new film, "Mr. Popper's Penguins," but in a recent interview the actor opened up about his new obsession - painting.

"Mine is all over the place, it's conceptual, it's abstract," Carrey told OnTheRedCarpet.com special correspondent George Pennacchio of KABC Television. "Yes, there is a painting in the film, where I'm working at my computer - it's in the background of the den. In the last couple of years, this thing has become an obsession for me, so when I was filming in New York, I did 30 paintings and I was literally tripping over paintings in my apartment."

Carrey said he eventually rented a studio in New York City to accommodate his large-scale paintings and went there to work on his art after filming.

"I would go be there until all hours of the morning," Carrey continued. "Doing these 12 and 16-foot paintings and I would show up in the morning, covered in paint to the set and if they didn't give me something to paint on, I would pull the ceiling tiles out and paint on those."

Carrey added that he is sure that "one of these days, you'll be able to put all these paintings in front of a psychotherapist and figure me all out. I haven't."

Carrey has done a good job in his career of catering to younger audiences with movies like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "Horton Hears a Who!"

"I like appealing to the kid in everybody." Carrey told OnTheRedCarpet.com. "Everybody is a kid, so that's the great thing about comedy, its freedom from concern. That's my ministry in the world, if there is one. Especially kids. I'm not drawn to doing something that's completely soft in nature, I like a rock 'n roll edge to things but when I saw this thing, I got a little lip quiver and I thought 'Wow, this is actually kind of touching and in a kind of 'Home Alone' way, captures the city and that warm feeling."

Though there was a lot of computer-generated penguin moments, there were also live birds on set, which was not always a quiet or predictable situation.

"We were using animatronic penguins for a second, but literally, that whole thing is kind of screwed now," Carrey said, adding: "Everyone has a cell phone, everyone has an electronic in their ear and guys sit on joysticks going 'Is that you? That's not me! Is that you?' So the penguins would do this 'Jacob's Ladder' thing on me. We did a lot of CG, mostly real penguins though! So I'd role around in vichyssoise, put fish in my eyes and they would act like they love me."

Carrey also said that the lovable penguins were the film's "secret weapon."